Prevalence of mental disorders, personality traits and mental complaints in the Lundby Study. A point prevalence study of the 1957 Lundby cohort of 2,612 inhabitants of a geographically defined area who were re-examined in 1972 regardless of domicile.

Abstract

The Lundby Study is a prospective, psychiatric-epidemiological study of a normal population that has been repeatedly examined over a period of 25 years. Experienced psychiatrists made home visits and collected the basic information through personal examinations adding supplementary data from other relevant sources. The present book contains point prevalence data of mental disorders such as neuroses, psychoses, organic brain syndromes, psychosomatic disorders, psychopathy, mental retardation, alcoholism, mental complaints, and also of various personality traits in a normal population at two points of time, 15 years apart. Together with earlier published incidence studies the present monograph is intended to give as complete a picture as possible of the mental morbidity in a total population. Our most conspicuous finding was the increase over time of the prevalence of neurotic illnesses. Depressive illnesses represented the largest increase. In the male sex the rate of Neurosis trebled from Time 1 to Time 2, although the female preponderance still remained. Psychopathy and Alcoholism, on the other hand, were very markedly male disorders. A description of how the investigations were performed is included and also a list of publications originating from the Lundby Study. This book will be of interest to physicians and psychiatrists interested in epidemiology and also to governmental planners and social scientists.